- africanlegalstudies.blog

Racism Concerns in Search Results and Implications for Researching on African Issues
COMMENT Nelson Otieno 13 May 2022 “Why Africa” Search Results Search results are enabled by algorithms that collect, organize, and categorize data into contexts to produce desired results. With this in hindsight, I have done a quick random (and admittedly unscientific) analysis by searching for the word ‘Why Africa’ on Yahoo search engine. I note that that Yahoo provides six generic results. Two search results are from my search history. Four of these are generic and read as follows: ‘Why Africa is poor’,…
Anti-racism in international human rights law – What is radical enough?
ANALYSIS Thoko Kaime and Isabelle Zundel 06 May 2022 The africanlegalstudies.blog has sent the focus month “Longing for an Anti-Racist World” into a second round. Rightly so, since (un)surprisingly racism is still “one of the globe’s most severe catastrophes”[1] to cite Prof. Arndt in her contribution on this forum last year. The cruel manifestations of the past few years are but examples of a centuries-old system of “oppression and subjugation”[2]. And yet, they have triggered a hitherto unseen global debate on racism that…

Is Civil War Coming to Somalia?
COMMENT René Brosius 28 April 2021 The conflict over elections in Somalia[1] , which has been ongoing since last summer, has reached the next stage of escalation. Internationally mediated talks between the government, whose term has constitutionally expired[2] and the National Salvation Council (NSC), consisting of the presidential candidates, the prime ministers of Jubbaland and…
Somalia vs. Kenya – The maritime border dispute
COMMENT René Brosius 09 April 2021 Somalia and Kenya do not have a tension-free relationship. Many reasons for this lie in the conflict-ridden history. The border between the two countries is a disputed colonial legacy. Large ethnic Somali minorities still live on Kenya’s territory, especially in the so-called North Eastern Province. The majority of the…
Encouraging Renewable Energy Deployment in Kenya – Analysing the Legal and PoliticalTools
ANALYSIS Hannah Kadner 12 March 2021 Kenya 2030 – a mission (almost) accomplished. A mission designed to address the issue of insufficient energy supply in the East African country. Considering that Kenya is a so-called developing country (ranking 147th of 189 on the Human Development Index, in 2019) this aim of Kenya`s former president Mwai…

Human Rights are Inherent to Every Human, or are They?
ANALYSIS Gift Mauluka 28 January 2022 Climate change has many impacts on children’s rights. In many cases of extreme vulnerability, such as situations of child labour, those impacts are even more profound. This blog piece attempts to unpack the connections between child labour and climate change. Having established these connections, I then look at the…
Access to Mining Rights in South Africa: Laying the Foundation of the Principle of Informed Consent
ANALYSIS Ange-Dorine Irakoze The regime of mining ownership in the South African Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Act 2002 (MPRDA)[1] is founded on State’s custodianship rights. Under this custodianship, the State regulates mineral resources as common property for all South Africans. The Minister for Mineral Resources and Energy has the power to grant mineral licenses…
‘Good Order’ as Basis for Conducting Data Protection Impact Assessment during Transitional Periods
ANALYSIS Nelson Otieno 21 January 2022 Registration of Persons Act[1] is the legislation that provides for registration of Kenyans who have attained the actual or apparent age of eighteen years or over. The Act empowers registration officers to issue National Identity Cards as evidence of registration. Sometime in 2018, the Government of Kenya passed the…

Light and Shadow in Somalia – How Ahlu Sunna Waljama’a and the Elections are Connected
ANALYSIS René Brosius 12 November 2021 The latest news from Somalia could not be contradictory. On the one hand, the first democratic “one person, one vote” elections since 1969 took place in Puntland, the semi-autonomous state in north-eastern Somalia, on 25 October 2021; on the other hand, there was bloody fighting in central Somalia. Admittedly,…
House of Cards in Villa Somalia
ANALYSIS René Brosius 17 September 2021 In April 2021, after Somalia was on the brink of civil war, it seemed for a long time that the solution would be found in a tough (s)election process. The May 27, 2021 agreement and Prime Minister Roble’s timetable presented at the end of June stipulated that this process…
Constitutional Crisis in Somalia – Democratic, Free and Fair Elections?
ANALYSIS René Brosius 10 February 2021 The upcoming presidential elections in Somalia are dominated by the debate on free and fair elections, a debate that brought the country to the brink of civil war. While the states of Puntland, Jubbaland as well as the united opposition in the country insist that the president’s term has…

CONSTITUTIONAL

Constitutionalism in a Time of Corona
COMMENT Prof. Dr. Thoko Kaime 26 February 2021 Constitutionalism, the idea that officials must necessarily be circumscribed by institutions that restrict the exercise of state power; continues to face tremendous pressure across African jurisdictions as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to ravage the Continent. As the imperative to protect lives underlines many a government’s response, it…
The Right to Vote for Everyone?
ANALYSIS Melanie Schwarzfischer 19 February 2021 In Zambia every citizen over the age of eighteen years has the right to vote, unless he or she is explicitly disqualified by Parliament (Article 75 (1) of the Constitution). However, not every citizen has equal opportunities to conduct their votes. Especially people with disabilities are disadvantaged because of…
Land Rights in South Africa – Constitutional Law, Apartheid and Gender Inequality
ANALYSIS Sophie Stange 12 February 2021 In 2018, the High Court of South Africa delivered Rahube v Rahube and Others a landmark decision protecting women’s rights to equality and land ownership. On October 30, 2018 in the case of Rahube v Rahube and Others ZACC 42 the Constitutional Court upheld the Pretoria High Court’s finding…